Internal Communication
by Missed Nin
Summary: The start of a series of introspective drabbles. Two: Arisawa Tatsuki. How can you help but worry, as you see your oldest friends grow further away from you day by day?
1. Vicissitude

I've read a few one-shots about Zaraki Kenpachi asking for the name of his zanpakuto, but none of them have looked at why he didn't think to do so before. Anyways, enjoy.

* * *

Zaraki Kenpachi looked at his sword. His zanpakuto, he thought, mentally recategorising the weapon. He'd rarely, if ever, considered the fact that the two terms were different: to a warrior from the savagery of the Rukongai slums, a weapon was a weapon and names were a pretension and a luxury the fighter couldn't afford. The pansy shinigami made themselves and their job look important, so what? Zaraki, who hadn't even been able to afford a name for himself for the longest time, scorned the idea that the shinigami needed to name weapons and mess around with ceremony in something that was simple: fighting. That was weakness, or it had always seemed that way to a man who'd fought his way to greatness with his own strength. 

_Why bother?_, he thought, once he'd become a captain and donned the uniform, still not all too impressed with the Court and its glories. Names were insignificant unless the person – or object – named was worth noticing. Kenpachi had come to the Gotei Thirteen as a person that _demanded _notice and acknowledgement, naming himself after the greatest of warriors. He'd made sure his name would be remembered; he had paid only cursory attention to any of his opponents' names or titles, be they sword or swordsman, because unless they fought him well, unless they affected him, he would have no reason to remember them.

The shinigami are hardly worth listening to, believed the Zaraki Kenpachi that cut his way into captaincy; even as he'd arrived in Seireitei, he'd been stronger than all of the so-called Death Gods. They'd had nothing to teach him, he'd had nothing to challenge him. He'd scorned the names and abilities of their weapons of choice; he had no reason to gain their kind of strength. Not until he met Kurosaki Ichigo.

Before the fight with the _ryoka_, the outsider kid, he'd never fought an opponent who could demand his respect by managing to cut him, by fighting back and facing him with self-conviction. He'd found a worthy opponent. Battling Kurosaki Ichigo was _fun_, and it had been a challenge like he could never remember facing before. But the fight had also been novel on another level, too: Kurosaki challenged his very way of fighting. Kurosaki had forced Kenpachi to respect him and forced him to accept the fact that he'd been defeated by someone who not only named his sword but talked like it was his equal. Kenpachi respected the strong; he was never going to be a coward and disregard words heard in the sincerity of battle.

He'd give Kurosaki that respect by not dismissing the kid's speech about zanpakuto names as the pretentious crap he'd always thought it was.

He'd face up to things, he wouldn't run away. He'd not back out by agreeing with Yachiru on the unfairness of the fight (though he couldn't help but enjoy the way she stood by him so loyally, saying he hadn't lost); he'd pay attention to what he'd done. It wasn't easy for Zaraki Kenpachi to say sorry to anyone or anything, but it was obvious he needed to now Kurosaki had bought the matter up. He'd done wrong, he who'd been denied a name had in turn denied one to someone – something? - else.

He wasn't sure how to go about this matter. He contemplated his sword – was the thing even a zanpakuto? He couldn't remember when he'd got the sword he'd wielded for years, but arriving to Soul Society he'd knew sure as fucking hell known he wouldn't give it up even if it wasn't the weapon of a shinigami, and no-one had suggested otherwise. It killed things, including Hollows, and he'd thought that was all that had mattered. No, he killed things with it and sent things to the afterlife, the latter was important too.

He wasn't going to chicken out of this by thinking about technicalities; the sword may not have been issued by the Shinigami Academy, but it had proved an equal to those that had been. He wasn't going to believe his sword didn't have a name, because broken though it might now be, it was his and he was sure that was what mattered when it came to this personalised sword crap. It was _his _sword that was nameless, and that he owed a name to. No getting out of the matter by faffing about technicalities.

He couldn't just make up a name for it like he had him and Yachiru. He knew that much, not that he'd listened much when people talked about the nature of a zanpakuto. Asking a name had failed the first time, but he'd keep at it. He had to prove he was sorry somehow, to atone.

With Yachiru, the only being he'd ever, ever felt a need to apologise too before now, sorry was easy – buy her candy, let her beat weak guys up. He hadn't a fucking clue how to apologise to something that he'd never seen as anything other than an inanimate object. Talking hadn't seemed to work; meditating was not something that came easy to him and his attempts at it had failed. (Yachiru jumping on his head hadn't helped that endeavour, to be fair. Maybe he'd try again later.)

But.. He wouldn't ask for help, though.

This was for him to work out.

He'd do this and get stronger.

(Yachiru watches Zaraki Kenpachi with serious eyes, but she doesn't know how to express the truth she knows. And she somehow understands that this is Ken-chan's business, and until Ken-chan learns what to ask and how to ask it, she'll have to leave his inner struggle to himself. She doesn't tell him anything she knows.)

* * *

Next up (methinks,) Tatsuki on being left behind.

I'm up to date with the manga and the anime, though, so if you want to request drabbles then you're welcome to, as long as they're not Ishida-centric. I don't like him.


	2. Solicitude

Arisawa Tatsuki glanced at herself in the mirror on the way to fetch herself a glass of water; her face was glistening with sweat. Not surprising, since she'd jogged all the way home from the dojo. She ran the tap until the water coming out was icy cold, then drank a glass-ful of it in one long gulp. She refilled the glass, then walked back to the mirror with it.

Under the mirror stood a chest-of-drawers, on top of which a hair-brush and a single tube of lipstick competed for space with schoolbooks and stationary. Inoue had given her the lip gloss as a present, naturally - Tatsuki would never buy something like that on her own. A photo of the two girls stood half-hidden, and her gaze dropped down to that as she put her drink down on top of a work-sheet (the ink on the paper ran, but she didn't notice).

The only other photo was of Kurosaki Ichigo, and the image normally made her laugh: he'd been caught by surprise by the camera, and it showed in his expression. His back had been to her, and she'd called to him. He'd been moody all that day, and her mischievous voice had provoked a scowl and a raised eyebrow from him. The Ichigo preserved in that picture was half-petulant and half-indignant, and she'd originally kept it just to annoy him.

Thoughts of Ichigo didn't help her present mood, though. Ever since Chad, Ichigo, Inoue and that Ishida boy had disappeared off, she'd been more and more aware of how her oldest friend and her best friend had changed.

_Changed, my arse. _Tatsuki wasn't going to lie to herself. Change wasn't the problem, it was the secrets they were keeping from her that were making her so bad tempered.

She put down her glass of water, too fast. She could cope with changes in behaviour and there being tensions between people she knew that she couldn't understand, but there were people getting hurt. And it seemed like her two best friends had a perfect understanding of _why_. There were new students that Ichigo had already met, there were people that _scared_ him, even. People that didn't fit in. People attacking the people she cared for.

Tatsuki was used to being strong, used to being competent. She guided Orihime through school and advised her on relationships, she'd watched and helped along Ichigo's transition from runty crybaby to scary scowly punkish guy (with a heart of gold).

"I've had enough of this," she told her reflection, looking up at it. Her reflection was scowling, eyebrows lowered and jaw clenched, hair spiky and messy. Her angry eyebrows made her think of Ichigo; the way they screwed up in anger mirrored his habitual expression. Her eyebrows were masculine because they'd never been plucked, and she had the sudden urge to reshape them.

She really fucking didn't want to look like Ichigo right now. She finished the glass of water and headed to the shower, discarding her karate uniform to the floor.

If she was honest, it also bothered her that they were all getting closer to each other and she was getting left behind. The selfishness of this emotion wasn't lost on her, but she could tell that there was something vitally important happening, and her friends understood it. It was like they were all growing up and growing apart, like the actions she and they took now would separate them for all their respective futures. She had the feeling she was out of the loop, and she'd never ever be able to reconnect and join her old friends as an equal, as a trusted confidante.

She couldn't deny it, she _really_ didn't want to leave Inoue's life. Ichigo was self-sufficient, now, and she knew he'd never be as close to her again as he had been once. Orihime Inoue, though... Inoue was a huge part of her life. Inoue was the only friend – the only person, if she was feeling brutally honest – who she'd ever really,_ genuinely_ cared for more than she did for herself. She'd protected Inoue from bullying girls, she'd listened to her most personal thoughts and followed her randomly wandering mind across the most bizzare places it could go. She'd been a mother and a sister to Inoue, and she didn't want to lose either of those roles.

She loved Inoue, who was an honestly good person, who was beautiful and modest and gentle and kind. Inoue's influence had let Tatsuki grow up past what she had been (a tomboy who hated the world because of her private insecurity, if you want to know; Tatsuki would never admit this to anyone except her Inoue) and she'd helped turn Tatsuki into someone who was at ease with herself and her identity.

Tatsuki had become a better person because of Orihime Inoue. But even as a better person, Tatsuki wasn't generous enough to want to let Inoue go.


End file.
